Reconfigurable vehicles have been the subject of frequent design efforts by automotive engineers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,827 discloses a convertible car in which the top of the vehicle is lowered into the bed of the vehicle, allowing a hinged tailgate borne upon a sliding frame member to be moved to a position behind the front seat of the vehicle.
US Patent Publication 2002/0008396 discloses a motor vehicle with a convertible passenger compartment in which a sliding section having either a fixed backlite, or a backlite which is retractable solely into the tailgate of the vehicle is slidably moved under a fixed roof section of the vehicle. In both cases, the quarter window glazing panels must be removed manually. A problem with the system described in the '396 publication resides in the fact that the backlite is not available when the vehicle is reconfigured from a station wagon type of configuration to a pickup type of configuration. This means that the vehicle cannot be made weather tight and theft-resistant as a pickup truck; these are decided drawbacks for most vehicle buyers. A system according to the present invention solves the problems associated with these prior art configurations.